Something bad, then.

When wasn't it something bad? Ice's ears flattened and his tail drooped—and his heart beat furiously, in denial, trying to roar so loud it would drown out the facts, and replace it with fiction. Sunshine and love and joy and not at all the bitter sting of loss. His jaws pressed together, his own teeth pricking the gums and lips. So much destruction.. everywhere, and always. It was depressing to know that the world spun like this.

Rowan's face had turned guarded, a steel mask over his eyes and the set of his jaw; Ice's silver eyes were soft and apologetic. He hadn't know this story would be a bad one, too, though he had suspected. His run-in with Eirian hadn't helped either, and even though he'd gone on to find what looked like an abandoned pack area, there had been no signs whatsoever of what had happened to the Rapids pack.

A flood. Kisla was swept away in the river again, Naira—not so cowardly then—throwing herself into the roaring mass of water to find her, and keep her safe. Ice let his gaze slide off the other wolf and to the spring-hinting ground. "That must've been after I ..disappeared," he admitted quietly, nearly wincing on the last word. He didn't know what else to call it, though, and made himself look at Rowan's face again. "I'm sorry to hear. I went looking for her and the Rapids when I came back, but.. this explains why I found nothing."

He'd left the world and found it in the paws of the next generation when he came back—he was just a leftover, something that didn't have the good grace to follow the rest of his kin into oblivion. Life beat too strong and hot in his chest.

A world without Ava seemed both unfair, and darker. He had nurtured hope that she and Kade had done like so many others, and abandoned the Lore for greener pastures, but the story of the demise of Darkwater Rapids made it seem improbably; just a fool's hope. He shook his head, uncertain of where to go from here.

Rowan tried to ease his guilt. It was beautiful, and it was unasked for, and Ice felt something tighten further in his chest. You would've been proud of him, Ava, he thought. To care for a stranger—for that was what he was, even if he had known his mother—was a rare thing. Then, it had been a storm, the blackness of night, and his voice humming into its din. She had come out of it, like a shadow.

"What was she like? My mother."

Shadows and stars. The black water under the moon—too elegant to be a raven, but a bird in flight. A small smile curved his lips. To think that she most likely was dead.. that her mischievous spirit laid to rest... It was hard, even for him. Maybe, if he had been here when the flood had come, it would've been easier to understand. His gaze flicked up. Some part of her still lived on, but their tongue-in-cheek encounters.. were they truly over? He had lived in ignorance of it, always on the lookout for a piece or two, a clue, but had he finally found what he sought for—an answer? It wasn't one he would've liked.

"Charming," he began, then realized how odd it sounded. Had he been infatuated with her? He wasn't sure. He had loved her but his heart had been sworn to another, and his allegiance had laid elsewhere. "She was witty and clever. I want to say spirited, but without it being very obvious." He pawed at the soggy ground, and studied Rowan again. "Black as the night. A bit lanky, like you, but shorter. Bright amber eyes."

Briefly, he glanced at the sky—or up, at least, since the fog hid it from view. The stars had been out when they'd met the first time. "It was a bit of a forbidden friendship story between us. She belonged to a newly founded pack that had hurt mine badly. I was out in a storm, trying to process, when she showed up and.. I talked her through some things, and I guess it helped her come to some kind of conclusion. I wanted to hate her on principle, but she was too damn charming. Our packs lived relatively close, so we met up a fair bit. We..." It hurt to think about. It hurt to talk about. All those lost futures. "She and Kade founded Darkwater Rapids, while Corinna and I went on to make Oak Tree Bend. I ran into Ava shortly after, in the red mountains, and.. Everything was going to be great, y'know? We had two sons and she had you lot, and we were going to introduce Kade and Cori properly to one another and take the kids on trips so you'd get to play with each other and stuff..."

He hadn't meant to go off on that tangent, but he had, and now he felt weirdly guilty about it. He wasn't sure how much about Ava that part had been... "But it didn't end up like that," he finished, softly. Suddenly everything hurt too much.

He thought, then, of how he had come out of the fogs in the Spectral Wood, and asked for his son—his son, who had seen only a stranger, and a particularly weird one at that. Serach had been too young to develop more of a grudge, fortunately, but he must've been raised on scattered stories of the looming white presence of his childhood, just like Rowan had been raised on crumbling memories. He swallowed a little, trying to rid himself of the burning lump forming in his throat. What had it been like for Serach, to watch a mythical figure from his past step into the present?

Ice had no way of finding Ava, whether it meant finding the she-wolf or finding bones. He had no way to pull her out from the folds of his thick fur and placing her in front of Rowan, so he did the best he could. He spun the framework of her story with words, fragile and fleeting things, and he realized that if he just prepared himself enough, he could talk about her for.. hours. Her ghost there next to them, the closest she had ever come in years—it was almost like she was there, in the corner of his eye...

His wicked witch of the west.

His throat was closing up, so for a moment, his only response was a shrug of his massive shoulders, before the gold gaze trapped his and kept him there. He wanted to say something, apologize for not having been there, for.. for not having been able to save her.. for not even knowing what he should've saved her from.

After a moment, an answering grin spread across his graying maw. "I like you too, Rowan," he said quietly, "and I think Ava would be proud to see who you've grown into. And.. if you'd like, you'd be welcome to come stay with us, in the Bend." He was sure he could convince Serach and Aponi to take Rowan in—he seemed the honest, hard-working type, and if Ice put in a good word for him?

But he didn't dare to get his hopes up too high. Rowan was looking for his daughter, and Ice knew that that was a hunt one could not call off.